


Did I Make the Most of Loving You?

by LadyStrallan



Category: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Lutvak/Freedman
Genre: 1910s, F/M, Goodbyes, Sad, Secret Relationship, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26437096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyStrallan/pseuds/LadyStrallan
Summary: Sibella visits Monty in jail the day before he is to be hanged. She contemplates her life without him and processes her grief while seeing him one last time.
Relationships: Phoebe D'Ysquith/Monty Navarro, Sibella Hallward/Lionel Holland, Sibella Hallward/Monty Navarro
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Did I Make the Most of Loving You?

Sibella followed the guard down the hall. The jail was bleak and had a disgusting musky stench. Finally, the guard stopped in front of a cell door. Through the bars, Sibella could see Monty, hunched over a beat up writing desk and scribbling into a worn leather bound journal. There was a pronounced creak as the guard opened the cell door and then coughed for Sibella to enter. The creak had caught Monty’s attention, and he turned towards the door.

Upon spotting Sibella, Monty’s lips parted and his eyes brightened. “Sibella!” he exclaimed, bounding towards her with out stretched arms.

“Monty,” she sighed, melting into his embrace. The guard stood stationed at the now closed door, until a few seconds of aggressive eye contact from Sibella caused him to abandon his post. She knew that she could not keep up their facade, not this time. Although Monty was to perish the next day by the hangman’s noose, their affair could not afford to be revealed.

Once she was absolutely certain the guard had left, Sibella took Monty’s face in her hands and kissed him. Hard. Monty looked slightly surprised, but the kiss was not unwelcome.

When the kiss broke, Sibella did not let go of Monty’s face. Instead she merely looked at it. Looked, and gazed, and admired, and studied the features of her lover’s face. A face she had kissed so many times. A face that had brought her both joy and pain. A face that now as she looked at it, nearly trembled in her grasp.

She looked and looked at him. What she saw was the man she loved. Her first love. Her only true love. He could wither with age and lose his good looks; she wouldn’t care. He could lie to her, spurn her, anything; she wouldn’t care. Had he truly been the one to kill Lord Adelbert D’Ysquith, and perhaps the others too, she would still love him. This was still the young boy she had fallen in love with in Clapham those many years ago. How could she possibly go on without him?

She noticed her breathing had hitched. She pressed her lips together, trying to will away the tears pooling in her eyes. Sibella was not one to cry. But now, when perhaps the only person she cared about as deeply as she did herself was so close to death, she could not hold back her emotions.

“I’m sorry,” she was able to get out, “S-so very sorry, Monty.” He took her in his arms and allowed her to whimper into his shirt. “I shouldn’t have married Lionel,” she snivelled between sobs, “I should have kissed you more, I should have listened to you, Monty.”

He gently stroked her hair, softly whispering, “It’s alright, darling.”

She abruptly broke out of his hold. “No!” she snapped, “It’s not alright.” She attempted to wipe the tears from her flushed cheeks. “It’s not supposed to be like this, it can’t.” She looked deeply into Monty’s eyes, they were also wet with tears. “We should have belonged together. We should have been married, and had children together, and-” She could not continue.

A tear ran down Monty’s cheek, promptly followed by two more. “Oh, Sibella,” he sighed. Once more she fell into his arms, both of them wept as they kissed, tasting the saltiness of each other’s tears. Monty caressed Sibella delicately, as if she were made of glass. Sibella, on the other hand, ran her hands over every inch of Monty that she could; absorbing the feeling of his body before it was too late.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she whispered over and over into his ear, each one more broken than the last. “I never said it enough, Monty. Never told you how much you mean to me.”

“I knew it all along,” he said. “By they way your face lights up at the sight of me, by the way you soften at my touch. Sibella…” He took a shaky breath. “ _My Sibella._ I will always love you.”

Sibella developed a sad sort of smile. Then, after a beat of melancholy silence, Sibella moved in for another kiss. She wanted more, wanted Monty’s lips on every possible surface of her body. But this, she knew, wasn’t possible. The risk was too great. How she wished they were back in that dingy little apartment Monty shared with his mother. How she wished that they had all the time in the world to kiss and caress each other. If only she could turn back the clock.

She thought back to the day Monty visited her at her house in Clapham. The day he told her of his newly discovered lineage. She regretted how she blew him off. How she told him that too many people were in line before him and that the likelihood of those eight people dying in Monty’s lifetime was- Sibella came to a horrifying revelation. Had she been the one to set Monty on this murderous spree? Had he done it so she would marry him? Was she the reason that he was now rotting in a jail cell, awaiting death? The thought was too much to bear. Oh God, if only she weren’t so fatally vain.

Monty had noticed that something was wrong. “What is it, darling?” he asked.

“Oh, God,” Sibella cried. “I’ve done this to you. Oh, Monty, I’m so sorry. Oh my God!” She burst into tears, burying her face in her hands.

“Done what, darling?” Monty placed a consoling hand on Sibella’s shoulder.

“You did this for me, didn’t you? Killed those people so you could be Earl, and then I would marry you,” she snivelled.

“No, my darling, don’t blame yourself. It was the D’Ysquiths, and Mother, and… Sibella, don’t cry.”

“Oh, Monty, I should have been better. You were so good to me. I… I didn’t even go to your wedding.” His wedding. Phoebe. She hadn’t given the woman a thought since she had arrived at the jail. The hard truth of reality set in and Sibella remembered that both she and Monty were married.

“Sibella,” Monty said, “Can you promise me something?”

She nodded profusely. “Anything, Monty, anything.”

“Take care of Phoebe for me. I fear she may never recover from this. And you of all people know what society will do to her.” He looked at her, pleading. “Please, Sibella. Have mercy on her. For my sake.”

Sibella swallowed hard. It was going to be difficult; being tasked with caring for her lover’s wife. But, if it was Monty’s dying wish, then by God she would carry it out. She nodded.

Monty went over to the writing desk and picked up the journal. He placed it in Sibella’s hands. “These are my memoirs. Everything is in here. The affair, the murders, everything.” He lowered his head in regret. “It’s all I have to give you.”

She held his hands in hers. “Monty, you don’t have to give me anything. You’ve already given me everything.”

“I-I’ve written you a poem. It’s on the last page.” Monty’s lips began to shake, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “I want you to read it after… when I’m gone.”

She nodded again. “Monty,” Sibella began, “know that I won’t ever forget you. How you kissed me, how you made me laugh, how you made me cry, how you spent however much you could to buy me gifts, how you bored me with anecdotes from those books you were so fond of as a child, how you never failed to cheer me… how you loved me.” She took in a shaky breath. “Monty, I will remember you forever, and I will love you forever.”

Sibella let out a stifled whimper, before Monty pulled her into a deep kiss. As the sound of footsteps approached, Sibella knew that this was the last time she would ever kiss Monty Navarro. The kiss ended with Sibella inhaling sharply. She wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to look put together.

“Time’s up,” spoke the guard’s gruff voice.

Sibella looked at Monty grievously. She gave him a last embrace that she hoped looked friendly to the guard, then walked towards the door. “Goodbye, Monty,” she said, standing in the doorway. “May God have mercy on you.”

The guard then closed the cell door, and began to usher Sibella down the hall. She kept her eyes on him for as long as she could, and just before she lost view, her lips silently formed those three little words.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought of this idea while listening to the song "Did I Make the Most of Loving You?" on the Downton Abbey soundtrack. Sorry I haven't updated I Really Wish I Hated you in a while. A new chapter is in the works. Expect another GGLAM fic soon! <3
> 
> \- LadyStrallan :)


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